Coffee or Otherwise
by rhea lupin
Summary: For Jenny. It's like this. One day he fell out of the sky, and she's been crazy ever since.


**A/N**: This is for Jenny, for everything. You're an inspiration, and I hope this fic is at least one sixteenth of what _you_'re capable of. I love you!

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><p>"I made myself from all the love you no longer wanted." —I Wrote This For You<p>

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><p>THE BEGINNING<br>_one good thing worth trying to be_

It's like this. She's eleven and Hogwarts is _huge _and, Merlin, why didn't anyone tell her there were so many students and she can't find anyone she knows in a crowd of one thousand. She always thought that her family was huge because they were the only people she knew growing up, so maybe, just maybe, Hogwarts would be full of redheads who were loud and obnoxious and all good at Quidditch—but hell, how do they find each other here? Everyone is blonde and brunette and some have two colors in their hair and _what if I end up by myself for seven years_?

She squeezes between a girl who looks like she belongs in Third Year and a worn-looking boy with floppy brown hair and glasses. She smiles at him nervously (_he can probably read my thoughts on my face_, she thought; _I should work on that one_) and watches him push his glasses back up his nose and shuffle his feet. She thinks that she's glad someone else is as nervous as she is and sighs. "What House do you want to be in?" she asks him half-heartedly, knowing there was probably zero chance of him hearing her over the roar of teenagers screaming at each other about their summers and their schedules and did you hear about hers and he said, she saids.

"Ravenclaw," he answers. She can't hear. "Ravenclaw! I want to be in Ravenclaw."

She smiles, despairing in her head. Now she knows she won't be in the same house as he. _I'm not nearly that smart_, she thinks. _Maybe I could, like, trick the Sorting Hat. Can you do that? No, it's a hat… but—_

"What about you?" he's asking her, waving his hand in front of her face to get her attention. "Hogwarts to—what's your name?"

"Lucy. And I don't know. Everyone at home worried about their future House for years before they came here. 'Gryffindor, I'll be a Gryffindor,' they said, convinced that just because they were a Weasley made them brave and chivalrous and just—I'm not either, I don't feel like a Weasley—what do you think?" she says all in one breath, her emotions and anxieties all flying out of her mouth. "I'm sorry, my mum always tells me to hold back when I'm nervous…"

He laughs, and for a split second she's worried she's said too much and lost the first making of a friend she's had since she was six and her sister loved her. But then he says, "That's stupid that they're making you feel like you have to be a Gryffindor. Be whatever you want. Be a Slytherin if you really feel like it."

The headmaster yells then and everyone shuts up, including him. They start calling them up in alphabetical order but he doesn't move till the S's are called.

"Scamander, Lorcan," he yells, and the grey-eyed, floppy-haired twelve-year-old begins to move to the front, leaving you with a "I'll see you later."

She watches him trip up the stairs and hold back a laugh and watch his hair flatten as the Hat is placed atop him. His face changes from nervousness to astonishment and back again, until—

"_RAVENCLAW!" _

She smiles a little as he stumbles happily to the table. He looks around for a second, maybe like he's searching for a fairy-haired girl, but she moves behind a five-foot-five boy and waits.

Her moment comes and goes quickly. It screams and she stands to walk quietly and disappointingly to the Hufflepuff table. She wonders in her head if she's really so kind and true to be a part of a House that all looks kinder and truer than her; she'd much rather be smart and witty, but in the moments of decision, she didn't tell the Hat anything. Not _this is the pressure I've been a-waiting _and _put me with a friend_; nothing but blank thoughts and a feeling of not being worthy.

A redhead greets her and she half-grins, deciding she'll find him later.

* * *

><p>FIRST YEAR<br>_there is only one solution I can see here_

Ravenclaws are assigned most classes with the Gryffindors the first year, to her dismay. She's stuck in Transfiguration and Charms and just _everything _with the snobby Slytherin girls who disapprove of her choice in Muggle caffeine (coffee — _oh_, how she could write love songs to coffee) and look down on the chipped nail polish she never washes off. The Hufflepuffs are boring and nice, almost too nice, while she's used to growing up with someone who hated everything she chose to be. The girls she rooms with _want _to hear her jokes and her silly eleven-year-old fantasies about grey-eyed boys. She doesn't want to share anything, though, after years and years of loving the wrong series of _Doctor Who_ and listening to the wrong music and laughing at the wrong places. She keeps it locked up now.

Every Wednesday, though, she has a class with him, at midnight. A class where she overlooks the castle with him and looks at the stars and charts constellations. Sometimes it rains. Sometimes he smiles. But they always talk.

She discovers he likes Audrey Hepburn, too, and writing snail mail and dog-earing books. He tells her all about his favorite novels, about how he longed to fly to the second star on the right on his father's broom as a kid and then got scared shitless by Steven King.

He tells her how he likes being so much younger than his brother. "With the seven year gap, our parents never compared us. Frankly, they never really told us anything," he says. His face falls a little and the wind blows all her blonde hair in her face. "I mean, they were home enough, but it never seemed like they…wanted us… What are your parents like?" he asks, hoping to move the conversation away from his still-bleeding insecurities.

"My family…," she starts and, still so young, doesn't think that someone would ever such information against her, goes on to tell him about her mother yelling and her father getting cancer and her mother shutting up and her sister growing and changing and _screaming_. She omits the nights she holed herself up in her closet, crying over the father she lost and the monster who entered her sister when he died, telling him of her coffee obsession instead that was born out of frightened insomnia.

"I just love coffee; I don't know," she says, twisting her telescope one night in the chilly April air, worrying about the Charms exam the next day and giving the future barely any thought. She is supposed to be looking for Mars. "I know I probably drink too much of it, but I like what it stands for: no sleep and more energy. It's my only friend in this big, bad world, you know?"

"Aren't we friends?" he asks her then, and she smiles slowly and says "sure" and then he smiles, too, and somehow, she feels happy.

* * *

><p>SUMMER: TAKE ONE<br>_save your resolutions for your never new year_

The summer passes slowly. She turns twelve, and her mum gives her enough money for her to buy twenty new books to occupy herself with for the coming months. She expects to spend most of her time reading them and rereading Dickens, but in early June, an owl taps on her window, and drops a letter in. She only half expects it.

_Dear Lucy_, the letter begins.

_I was sitting around writing yesterday and I saw my mum drinking some coffee and I thought about you, and I thought I might send you a letter. I figure you're a little lonely over in your large house full of seemingly empty people and that you needed someone to talk to. _

_Send me a letter if you'd like._

_Lorcan._

Lucy folds the letter up quickly to use as a bookmark. She opens it up and reads it every day, before putting it back and not writing anything. She's slightly, irrationally, afraid of the idea that someone actually wants to talk to her. He's friendly. She's not used to friendly. She finally gains courage and composes a reply a week later, apologizing for not responding sooner, and then holes herself up in her closet again. He responds the next day eagerly. The cycle repeats.

He suggests one day in early July that she come visit. They could go buy their school supplies or play a board game or something. _Have you ever played Scrabble? Cluedo? _he writes. When she says "no", he tells he have to when (not if) she visits soon.

She walks up to her mum later that day while she's laying in front of the air conditioner and blasting _EastEnders_. They're having sex on the screen when she says, "Mum? Mum. Muuum, I need you."

"What could be wrong, Lucy? Seriously. This is the best part." She pauses the television but doesn't open her eyes. "You can make your own dinner," her mother says, like she doesn't every day.

"Would I be able to visit the Scamanders one day this week?"

Her mother snorts and she loses some hope. "You mean that crazy couple your Aunt Ginny is friends with?" "Yes." "Why would you want to do that?"

She falters. "I'm friends with their son, Lorcan. You know, the one that's my age," she says, trying to veer her mum's mind away from the image of Lysander, his older brother, who does weird things to fight for green technology and has long, long hair and rides a motorcycle. _Merlin forbid._

"Yes, yes, you can go," she agrees reluctantly and almost as if she were shooing her out. "Just don't grow up to marry that boy! He probably wants to live in a treehouse in the jungle, shack you up and get tattoos!"

She thanks her again and runs off to her room to write him the unlikely good news, and then dances around her room to "I Feel Fine" until her sister screams for her to turn down her "awful music".

_Hey! Guess what, _she writes him. _My mum says she'll bring me over. She's a school teacher, so she doesn't work during the summer and is always free unless _EastEnders _is on. She said it was fine as long as I don't grow up to marry you or something. _

_Love,_

_Lucy_

She visits the next Wednesday and he teaches her Scrabble. He wins. She visits Thursday and Friday and Saturday, and they finish off _Seinfeld_, a show her mum dubs "too inappropriate for anyone under seventeen". He visits her Monday. They watch that week's episode of _Doctor Who. _He tries coffee and ends up spitting it out on her.

Summer goes by too quickly for once.

* * *

><p>SECOND YEAR<br>_there will be girls across the nation who will eat this up_

School starts and the Hufflepuffs are put with the Gryffindors for _everything_, including Astronomy. She's afraid she won't see her best (only) friend again until he sits next to her at breakfast. And lunch. And dinner.

"Sitting with another House isn't unheard-of," he tells her so she doesn't worry. "C'mon, who cares?"

"I don't," she decides. She spends most of her time studying and daydreaming that year. She never thought "schoolgirl crushes" were real until he fell out of the sky, and now all her head does is spin.

She receives frequent letters from her mother about "not being allowed to receive a 'C' — or what do you wizards call it? An 'A'. 'E' or 'O' or you can't see that boy all summer, Lucy Weasley!"

She doesn't show him the letter and they spend hours in the library. He perfects all of his homework to 'O' standard and she struggles over Transfiguration. "What are you scheduling for?" she asks him in late May, chewing on the end of quill while cursing her existence and Professor Binns. "I signed up for Muggle Studies and a free period. Godric knows I'll need it with Transfiguration next year."

"Muggle Studies and Arthimancy," he replies, turning the page in her _Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy _copy. "What?" he says when she gives him a look. "I'm only in it for the physics."

"She doesn't teach physics till seventh year," she says, rolling her eyes. "You won't deal with Shakespeare, French, history and chemistry just for physics, will you?"

"Oh, belt up. Be happy we'll have a class together. _Je parle très bien français, merci_," he sing-songs.

"Yeah, yeah, that's what they all say," she laughs and he sticks out his tongue.

* * *

><p>SUMMER: TAKE TWO<br>_but sensible sells so could you kindly shut up?_

She's suddenly thirteen and her birthday present is puberty—the beginnings of breasts and legs and hips and, shit, _hormones_. June brings a new body and—can you get arrested for thinking about _that_? Her clothes are all ill-fitting now and she always thought the awkward "Mum, I need a bra" conversation was a fairytale till now.

They collide at Flourish and Blotts on the last day of the month in the mystery section. He sees her right away and exclaims, "Lucy!" He's shot up four inches since the beginning of the year and tells her how he finally had to buy new clothes, which he'll probably have to replace in a couple months. He's now five inches taller than her, even with her new long legs she's not used to—she's now almost as clumsy as he. He feels awkward for the first time talking to her because she's wearing a tank top and shorts but she's just his best friend. Just his best friend. _It's like talking to Lily or whatever that girl's name that lives next to you_, he tells himself.

"Wanna come over and watch classic _Doctor Who _tomorrow?" he asks her, hoping she'll say "yes" just so he can sit next to her because she smells like cherries and Merlin, he's fourteen and he just likes the way her long, curly hair looks—_stop it!_

She goes home after agreeing happily just to think about first kisses and boys; he makes faces at himself in the mirror and messes up his hair just to decide no matter what he does to it, it's always going to fall in his face, on his glasses, and make him look like a total nerd. _Some girls like nerds_, he tells himself before he goes to bed that night, trying not to think about whether she's one of them those girls or not.

"Do I ever get to see your room?" she asks him the next day, lying down on the couch and her legs propped up on his. She's been wondering about it for a few days; they never ventured up there last summer.

"Nah, it's a secret," he says jokingly and she glares at him. "Oh, c'mon. It's embarrassing and very messy."

"I don't care!" she decides and jumps off the couch, pausing the television. She pulls him up and says, "C'mon! What floor is it on?"

He leads her up two flights of stairs and opens the last door in the hallway. It has a poster of _Star Trek: The Next Generation _on the front. She pushes open the door to a room full to the brink with books—shelves and shelves of them, books stuffed under the bed and books piled up on a desk already full of paper. "Whoa," she says in awe. "I never knew you liked to read. That's…a lot of books. I guess I should've expected that, Mr. Ravenclaw Smartass. But what's embarrassing about your room? You don't have, like, footy pajamas stuck in a drawer somewhere, do you?"

"No, I don't," he laughs. "I just meant that I thought you would find my…library weird. I do like to read. My favorite author is Neil Gaiman. Know him? He wrote two episodes of _Doctor Who_ — 'The Doctor's Wife' and 'The Woman Made of Nothing'."

She nods, not paying attention; she's inspecting his desk, which has a pile of twenty notebooks on it and a bulletin above it with tons of paper stuck to it. She picks up one of his notebooks and turns around. "You don't like to write, do you?" she asks, smiling knowingly and waving the notebook in front of his face. He snatches it up and rolls his eyes.

"Shut up. Yes. Yes, I do. Anything else you want to know?"

She loses some air when she realizes he took her too personally. "Hey—I think that's awesome," she tells him truthfully. "And I bet you're great because I always thought you had amazing diction. If you ever want to share anything, I'd love to read your writing, you know. Though, I can't promise I'm the best editor."

"That's…thanks," he says, putting down his notebook by reaching around her. "Maybe one day. For now, I actually have to work on completing something. Or typing something up. Finishing something. You know. Nothing ever gets published half completed. Nothing works half done… Except maybe watching a bad movie."

"Okay, okay, I get it. Let's go watch a _good _movie," she replies, jumping on his bed. "I'm sure there's something on."

* * *

><p>THIRD YEAR<br>_only thing I ever could need_

Third year starts in a blur. Transfiguration gets harder; History of Magic is as boring as ever; Charms is tedious. She has Potions with the Ravenclaws, though, and Lorcan is always her partner. Except for the fact that she doesn't know anything about Potions, the class is amazing. Mostly because Lorcan knows how to get the potion very close to what it's supposed to be, and Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw's points go up daily. "We make a good team," he tells her a few weeks in, and she snorts because she doesn't really do anything; it's a one-man team.

"So, Jane asked me out yesterday," he tells you at the beginning of Muggle Studies before their professor has arrived. She drops her books _accidentally_, she swears. "I'm sorry, thank-you," she repeats a thousand times. "What were you saying? Jane? Date?"

"I was walking to dinner and she came up and said, 'Hi, Lorcan,'" he begins, dropping her stuff on the desk. "And I said, 'Hi, Jane. How was your summer?' She said, 'Good. You're looking different.' I didn't really know what to say to that, or whether it was a compliment or not. Am I looking different? Anyway, I said, 'Er,' and she said, 'Do you want to go out some time?' I don't really like Jane, no offence to her. She's pushy and not really my type and when I said 'no', she _pouted_. What do you think?"

_I'm glad you said "no"_, she thinks but says, "I think you're taller and your glasses fit your face better. I don't think she meant to say you were unattractive. Why didn't you tell me this at dinner?"

"Do you think she thinks I'm attractive?"

"I don't know," she says. "I don't think Jane has a type. Do you have a type?" _Blonde, quiet and coffee-addicted will work_, she thinks. _Best friend. Only friend. Anything_.

Their professor enters then, though, and his answer gets stuck in his mouth.

"Julius Caesar!" she announces. "Julius Caesar. Amazing drama. Anyone actually read Act One like I said to….?" she asks, smiling at the pair of them, the only two who raised their hands, not counting Mr. Suck Up, Dom Filth.

At dinner the next week, she sits down quickly and exclaims, "I think I made a new friend! Another friend. Her name is Ally. Longbottom's daughter. She sits next to me in Charms and we were paired up today and we really hit it off!"

He smiles, not really paying attention. "That's great."

"What's up?" she asks, before turning around to see what he was staring at… Bingo: Clare. _Oh_. "Does someone fancy Lawrence now, eh?"

"No!" he says, blushing. "Just a little. I mean. She's really smart and she loves The Beatles. And she told Sally that she thought I was hot and Sally told me. Do you think she'd say yes?"

"Yes," she says, a little dejectedly. "Why don't you ask her right now? She's not talking to anyone because Sally's with her boyfriend."

"That's a brilliant idea!" he decides, and gets up. "I'll be right back."

He doesn't come back; from what she can tell, Clare says yes and they keep talking. She stares at her plate for a half an hour. "I guess it doesn't matter if I have a new friend," she says to herself. "I always knew I'd lose my best one as soon as he liked someone."

* * *

><p>THIRD YEAR: TAKE TWO<br>_get started at keeping your part of the bargain_

It seems to Lucy that girlfriends are pretty time-consuming. The only time she sees him now is in Muggle Studies and Potions; it would have just been Muggle Studies, but Clare told it was fine if he was partners with her. Thanks, Clare. "You're best friends," she reminded him. "I don't care," but he seemed to.

Days he comes to see her in the Hufflepuff Common Room, he tells her how awkward kissing is the first time and how expectations are the worst part of relationships but the kissing gets a lot better. Apparently, Clare is really cool but she tells him he's "funny" a lot and never really laughs and doesn't actually love The Beatles. "She is really smart, like I said, though," he adds. "She scored the highest on exams last year. And Sally is nice, sort of. Never mind, Sally is snobby and I don't know why Clare likes her but I can't say anything."

She nods mostly and lets him keep talking. She'd rather live vivaciously through him and study too much than never get to talk to him and fail all her exams because she spent the year lying on her bed staring at the ceiling because the only thing she was sure about fell through. Not that she doesn't do that anyway. But Ally has been quite nice, though she doesn't really ask about him. "Ally has a boyfriend, too," she tells him, interrupting his train of thought about Clare, "who loves The Beatles. His name is Liam Stawovy, and he's also in Hufflepuff. You would probably like him. He's not my favorite guy ever; he has Nice Guy Syndrome."

"What's Nice Guy Syndrome?" he asks, for once not thinking about what it's like to kiss a girl on a bed.

"When guys think they should get the girl just because they waited around for her, were really 'nice', even though she explicitly told them she wasn't interested the whole time," she explains. "It's why he doesn't really get between Ally and me. Ally doesn't really like him romantically, but he's her best friend and she can't break it to him yet. Anyway, she likes being able to say she has a boyfriend."

"That's…interesting," he replies. "You're weird. In a good way, of course." He stands and she does the same, wondering where he's going—except she knows. "I'll see you later; I promised Clare I'd explain the Transfiguration to her," he says, leaving, and she wishes he would've stayed to explain it to her, also.

* * *

><p>SUMMER: TAKE THREE<br>_meant to make me happy, made me sad_

Summer drags the year she turns fourteen. She sees Ally sometimes on the weekends, but Ally is mostly busy with a million other things. He sends her short, choppy letters with things like _I've got inspiration finally _and _How are you? I'm great today._

She never really responds. She starts replies but in fear of him not replying with the same length and effort, she rips up the pieces of paper and recycles. She reads her mum's books in hopes of connecting with something he must find with Clare even though she knows fiction isn't reality. She tries watching _EastEnders _and fails, wondering what her mum gets out of the show.

She realizes he probably stays with Clare because he loves to feel wanted. She wishes he weren't so selfish, _Merlin_, but she also wishes she didn't understand. Until she met him, she never knew what it felt like to feel wanted, even just platonically. She loved her dad, sure, but she was six when he died; her sister has never shown any interest in wanting anything to do with her; and her mother never quite recovered from the death of her husband and mother in the same year.

She drinks even more coffee that summer, as if wishing the substance was the number one cure for loneliness. It only causes her to lie awake at night longer and contemplate human existence and why people do this to themselves and how the _hell_ do they get out of it. She's only fourteen, and she wishes she had a friend rather than a hole in her heart.

* * *

><p>FOURTH YEAR<br>_I know it's your soul, but could you bottle it up?_

It's September 1, and she falls asleep against the window in Ally and Liam's compartment. She thinks, _I'm making up for all the sleep I missed this summer_, before she falls asleep to the sound of the wheels rattling, already in her robes.

She doesn't hear the door opening or the minute of kids screaming at each other across the hall or the floor creaking behind her before he shouts in her ear to surprise her.

She jumps off the seat with her wand pointed in the face—of him. "Oh, sorry," she says first, taking in his glasses and grey eyes. "Fuck off," she says before sitting back down, taking in the now-empty compartment. _At least they didn't stay in here to snog_, she thinks.

"What?" he asks obliviously, sitting down across from her. "Tell me what's wrong. Lucy?"

"'What?'" she repeats, mocking him and sitting up straight and playing with the pull-out cup holder in the seat. "Seriously, Lorcan," she says, "think about it. Why could I be mad at you… It could be your a) lack of contact, b) loss of effort, c) selfishness or d) all of the above. Fill in the bubble on your answer sheet but chances are, either answer works, though the correct answer is d) all of the above."

She feels slightly smug as she sees his face turn from surprise to confusion. "What do you mean?" he asks, running a hand through his hair. "Loss of contact… I owled you! You never owled back—"

"You call that an owl?" she says. "That was more of a 'busy as hell, too busy for you, here's a one-liner.' What was I supposed to say? '_I'm doing nothing at the moment; I never do anything. Have fun being happy with your girlfriend_'?"

"Oh, so my _girlfriend's _the problem?" he asks angrily. "If Clare bothers you that much—"

"If Clare bothers me that much nothing. I don't ever see you, therefore, I have never met her. Good job introducing your wonderful girlfriend to your so-called best friend. I'll start calling you my best friend again when you act like it," she says. "Because I definitely didn't have one this summer, spending most of my time by myself."

He stands and walks over to the door and she looks out the window again, trying to compose herself and wondering when she became so emotionally involved in this relationship. "Maybe if weren't so closed off all the time, you'd have some other friends," he tells her before opening the door and slamming it.

"Maybe if you weren't so damn selfish, you'd have a girlfriend you actually liked!" she yells at him before he walks off.

* * *

><p>FOURTH YEAR: TAKE TWO<br>_want to make it better so _bad

Just her luck, Hufflepuffs have classes with the Ravenclaws this year; any other year, Lucy would have been as happy as a clam, but now she spends most every class period watching him "talk" to his girlfriend (she mostly whines about homework and he nods). They're only forced to be partners in Muggle Studies, being the last two people without a partner the first day, but they're not allowed to speak to each other in English, anyway.

At the beginning of every day, they're required to ask their partner how they are. They tend to mumble French at each other.

Today, she says, "_Bonjur, ça va_?" and he says, "_J'ai vidé ma copine_," and she says, "_You dumped Clare_?" No one hears but he and a Gryffindor girl sitting close by.

"Yes. I realised about a month ago how our relationship broke us," he said, motioning to their chests. "I didn't know how to tell you."

"So you told me in _French_?"

"_Mademoiselle _Weasley_ et Monsieur _Scamander,_ pourquoi êtes-vous parler anglais_?" their professor exclaims and they shut up. The rest of the class laughs under their breaths.

"_Rien_," he says quickly. "_Comment est-ce que tu dis _'can I use the lavatory...?'"

Everything goes back to normal, sort of. He sits with her in every class again and at lunch and he's suddenly coming to see her in the Common Room a _lot _and asks if she wants to study together and go to Astronomy at the same time. She knows he's trying to make it all up to her, the loneliness and the aloneness, but she can't escape the feeling of just _not being happy_. She's doesn't quite understand what she's missing—she has her best friend back, but unfairly so. She can't help but feel sorry for the girl he dumped for whatever reason. They both skid around the stuff they said angrily at the beginning of the year, even though she wishes she could just apologize and say she was wrong about him being selfish (even though she wasn't, not really) and they could go along with their lives.

"What was it like having a girlfriend?" she asks him randomly one day when they're in the library learning complicated French verbs and revising for a Charms test. "I mean, is it everything they say it is?"

"It was nice knowing you're wanted," he tells her, just like she expected, and watches him push a hand through his brown hair and fix his glasses and she looks him over, trying to ignore the feeling in his stomach that reminds her that she still wishes she could kiss his mouth and never breathe again and run her hands on his chest. She wonders what it was like with _smart, nice Clare _before shaking it off and looking back down at her books.

"You all right?" he asks and she has an overwhelming want to scream _no, I'm not, please somebody _save _me_, but she holds it and nods her head. He runs another hand through his hair and she tries to imagine him disgusting and old but she can see him writing something on a scrap of paper to write more about later and she sighs. _Merde_, she's not getting anything done tonight.

* * *

><p>SUMMER: TAKE FOUR<br>_started with a flicker meant to be a flame_

She gets a job during summer; fifteen comes and goes, and for once she doesn't care about the number. She feels exactly the way she does at fourteen. She's grown into the new body parts thirteen gave her; fifteen is a strange mix of coffee and long legs and glasses. She works at the Starbucks down the street from her house. They hired her right away after her interview. The interviewer knew her from her numerous visits, could name off her two favorite cups and knew her personality well enough to know she wouldn't flick off the customers when they asked her to make something extra nasty. He comes in every day, now 6'0'', and leans over the counter, but thankfully she's now stuck at 5'6''. He fixes his glasses a lot when he talks to her and looks at more than just her face and fidgets nervously and when he leaves (every day, making her promise to come over and watch "_Doctor Who_ or a movie or something—even _Pokémon_, if we have to"), her coworkers tease her and she blushes but doesn't make any moves. She's out of moves. Most of her moves include watching a lot of television with him, like always, and discussing religion and books and politics, but mostly books. They try to read the same one at the same time, but he always finishes in the first two days and waits a week for her to discuss it.

They're not without their fair share of awkward moments where he trips (as always) and he falls on top of her—but she's confused how this ever ends "romantically" in movies because when he falls on top of her, it hurts like hell. She used to put her feet in his lap all the time, but not it seems too sexual and she was always kicking off his glasses anyway. And there was that one time they both got locked in the bathroom together ("It's a long story," she told her mum when she got home later) without their wands and Lysander made them sing and do ridiculous stuff before he let them out.

Hogwarts letters come in August, and when a Prefect badge falls out of her envelope, she screams. "Lorcan!" she yells next time she sees him. "Guess what?" And he says, "Prefect?" She manages a "yes", and he says, "Me, too!" (S)he tries not to think about possibly doing rounds with him, alone, at night, once a week…

* * *

><p>FIFTH YEAR<br>_only gonna get what you give away_

She doesn't pay much attention to her schedule itself Fifth Year. She's in OWL everything, and can't wait till she has the ability to drop Transfiguration and history and Herbology. Muggle Studies hits British history this year, and she falls asleep often. He lets her copy his notes, strangely, and helps her with Transfiguration, though she's close to a lost cause. They manage to convince Ben, the other fifth year Hufflepuff prefect to do rounds with Suzie, his partner.

Their spend rounds bickering and doing homework and handing out detention slips to kids stupid enough to think they won't get caught past curfew. They find all of the "hidden" spots in the school, and when they find a corner you can only get to if you take a specific tapestry shortcut, he says, "I'm surprised people don't try and make out in places like this; we wouldn't be able to find them," and then looks at her and shuts up. He fixes his glasses and she tries to block it. Tries.

"What year was the Battle of Hastings fought?" he quizzes her one night in February; they haven't found any rule breakers for once.

"Don't you think it would be funny if someone used 'I want you like JFK wanted a roof on his car' as a pick-up line?" she answers instead, thinking about it. "I think I'd like it. What do you think?"

He looks at her over the book for a second and then says, "Year?" He wishes it were impossible to look at her because he wouldn't want to constantly run his hands through her long hair and stick his hands up her skirt. He has less self-control then she does, and keeps himself entertained by imagining. "I think I would be like, 'I want to shoot you like his assassin did. I'd never get caught.'"

She laughs and tells him she definitely does not know the answer. "Ally broke up with Liam," she tells him, trying to get his mind off "freakin' Muggle Studies".

"_What_?"

"Yeah. She told him that she wasn't attracted to him and that she felt bad leading him on," she replies, downing her black coffee. "Liam's sort of heartbroken."

"I would be, too," he agrees. "Especially since he thought she was happy. Ally never did say 'love you, too,' though, when I think about it."

She nods sadly and slumps against the wall. "God, I never though fifth year would be so tiring," she says, rubbing her eyes and staring at her empty cup. "I _used_ to think I drank a lot of coffee…"

* * *

><p>SUMMER: TAKE FIVE<br>_still a baby in a cradle gotta take my first fall_

OWLs are done with a _bang! _the summer Lucy is sixteen; she works at the coffee shop, but her old co-workers are all attending university, across the country. She tries to talk to her new manager and the girls she ends up working with, but it's not the same. Each day when she gets off from work, she walks to Lorcan's house and sometimes she wonders how she's known him since she was eleven and still hasn't run out of things to talk about. Conversations revolve around science fiction and art and stars and sex, a new topic, now not tabooed because, jeez, he's seventeen and she's sixteen and they're teenagers. He thinks about what her legs look like in shorts more often than not and she wishes her birthday present had been her being pushed up against the wall rather than _The Best of H.P. Lovecraft_, which she has already devoured.

She takes another crash course in sadness the day she walks through the door to find her mother gone, and the phone ringing. She picks up the phone to _We're sorry, we're very sorry. You can… _Her sister's mouth shuts for the first time when she hears; she stops talking altogether at work, and when she visits Lorcan, she stares at his mouth as he tries to fill the silence, knowing she needs it. She often comes over and just curls up on his couch, resting her head on his neck, and shuts her eyes, trying to block all of the noise in her head. He wraps a hand around her when that happens, and whispers, "It'll be better soon," hoping he's right.

She spent so many years alone and off somewhere else, she never got to appreciate her mum. She now realizes what she went through when Dad died. She wishes she could go back and save her, but after what happened in "Father's Day" with the ninth Doctor, she holds her tongue, and her sadness spills over the edge.

* * *

><p>SIXTH YEAR<br>_baby's getting next to nowhere with her back against the wall_

She doesn't let summer's events keep her from studying as hard, or doing her Prefect duties perfectly. She sits across from Lorcan at breakfast and at lunch and at dinner, partners with him in all her classes and sits next to him in the library at night before returning to Hufflepuff.

She thanks Merlin she dropped History of Magic and Transfiguration, because she doesn't think she would have been able to deal with doing even more homework than what she has now. It's chem year, however, in Muggle Studies, and if Lorcan hadn't been her lab partner, she would've failed the Periodic Table, not been able to balance an equation (which would have been easy normally) or understand stoichiometry.

She stays at Hogwarts during the holidays, like normal, this year, but somehow it's emptier, because she doesn't have another option. She wonders if she would have gone home during the holidays if she had grown up with her dad as an important part of her life.

Mole Day rushes by and Lucy feels like another year of her life is lost. She's still sad about the death, but another feeling of sadness has replaced the one that was there before; something that tells her she won't make it, there's nothing at the end of the tunnel. She's lucky that she has Lorcan, who won't let her spend all her time curled up in the corner of the classroom.

* * *

><p>SUMMER: TAKE SIX<br>_I don't claim to know much, except…_

Seventeen comes with a blast in the ass. He offers her hope and a place to stay. Luna lets her take the guest bedroom, and she takes her surprisingly small amount of belongings there, as she didn't want the house, Molly did, and she was _not _living with her sister. She begins to drink her coffee with a little more sugar and when her Hogwarts letter comes in the mail a little thicker, she can't help but squeal (for the first time in a year). The Head Girl badge falls out, and he isn't disappointed he didn't get one because she's happy.

She feels like her hard work has paid off, and slowly opens again. He knocks on a door and she opens.

* * *

><p>SEVENTH YEAR<br>_makes it harder to bloom in a garden_

Physics year arrives, and they spend most of their time in the Ravenclaw Common Room debating the theory of relativity and time travel. They check out books at the library and do extra equations and ace their tests. They take advantage of her Head dormitories and Head Boy, Alec MacMillan, who is even more of an introvert than she is. She talks to Ally every day at dinner, too, and attempts to adjust to what life's thrown her, though she has days where she just wants to lay face down in her bed and shut off her mind.

They're working on a lab during off hours in the Muggle Studies room when it happens. She's not looking at him, rambling on about this and that, Einstein and whomever, when he says, "Belt up for a minute." She spins around and he reaches down to kiss her like he's wanted to since he was twelve and she was eleven and she couldn't stop talking from nerves. His arms wrap around her stomach and hers around his neck, and just like she always thought she would, she knocks his glasses off. He backs her up to the wall, and suddenly it's _raining_ and she's _laughing._

"What the hell?" he swears, breaking away to see the sprinklers going off, getting more angry the longer she laughs. "What are you laughing at? How do we stop that?"

"We—we hit the e-emergency switch," she manages, pointing to the switch behind them and he laughs, too, as she waves her wand to correct everything. "Figures, as soon as it happens, we cause some sort of mess," she says and he can't seem to not agree with her.

"Thanks," she says quietly a few minutes later, sitting next to him atop one of the lab tables. "You know, for everything."

He grabs her hand and doesn't bother saying "you're welcome", because she can feel it in the heat of his hand and the way he smiles at her.

"Well, at least a story to tell," he tells her as they walk down the hall as she scrunches her wet hair. He grabs her hand, something he's always wanted to. "Want to get dinner?"

"Yes," she says enthusiastically. "We have class tonight and I hate being starved when looking at the stars."

They fell in love over astronomy and the rest is history. It's like this.

* * *

><p>THE END<br>_of love, love, love, love_

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><p><strong>AN**: please do not favorite without reviewing.  
>I hope this didn't disappoint you Jenny! I know it wasn't as great as "You Could Be Alone", but.<p> 


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